During this semester my ability to incorporate outside sources in my writing improved. Coming into this class, I was able to incorporate small literary quotes into my writing smoothly, but wasn’t as good at including full claims while correctly introducing the author. Throughout the class, I learned strategies for introducing that someone other than myself was speaking and including a quote. For example:
According to Beck, “Americans have sought to author their lives as redemptive tales of atonement, emancipation, recovery, self-fulfillment, and upward social mobility”.
Barry finds solace in the fact that “there is always hope, even when you are a little Albanian Greek boy with no mattress”.
In both of these examples, I was able to clearly identify that the ideas to come were not going to be my own, and then the quote. Before and after both of these quotes I was talking about what I believe, so it was important to make sure my reader knows I was about to include what someone else believes.
Following the incorporation of a quote, I was then able to explain it and include my own opinion. I learned the importance of keeping your explanation concise, without taking up a lot of space explaining someone else’s argument. Sometimes, including my opinion about the author’s claim helped clarify what the author meant. For example:
According to Beck, “Americans have sought to author their lives as redemptive tales of atonement, emancipation, recovery, self-fulfillment, and upward social mobility”. Beck warns that although this concept may be presented as the standard narrative for American life, it is not always achievable, and presenting it as a higher truth can be harmful for those who may not have a choice in their destiny. While this may be a great way to tell stories, it is not always an accurate depiction of what life shapes up to be.
Throughout the semester, I was able to improve my ability to use sources as evidence by utilizing the Barclay and TREAC paragraph structures. By using these structures as a guide, it helped me keep my explanations and claims concise and precise. I struggle with keeping my ideas straight to the point sometimes, so using these formats helped me limit my words and properly embed sources as evidence.
